Herman Bartlett
Herman Bartlett (channel username: cars_around_my_house ) is a content creator, believed to be deceased, that launched his channel in August 2015. Despite showing no interest in elevators, he became very infamous in the community due to his abuse of the community and its members. His unmistakable appearance, voice, and attitude all attributed to this status, however, it is stealing of videos and attacks on members of the community on YouTube that gave him this reputation. The channel features no branding except a low-quality cover photo that mimics New Zealand's largest lift Filmer, Alex Ellis. Bartlett was supposedly 34 years old and supposedly passed away following his most recent upload from petroleum poisoning. In this video, he supposedly drinks petroleum 'as part of a food review.' With low-grade grammar, a distinctive gravelly voice, distinctive round tinted glasses, hate spouted in his videos, and poor production quality, it could be very likely that Bartlett was trolling. Despite this, the significant attention received from the elevator community through a plethora of dislikes and hate comments made his channel very relevant. One particular action of Bartlett's that as a result received heavy backlash was his creation of a petition to in fact ban elevator enthusiasts . In this petition, no actual evidence was actually provided to support his beliefs. Despite never actually showing any interest in elevators, Bartlett's actions have and continue to receive massive backlash from the elevator community with almost all of his videos having a considerable negative reception. Many members of the community have pointed out that Bartlett may be a troll due to his odd behavior, appearance, poor grammar, and lack of branding. Nevertheless, Bartlett is undeniably the most infamous person towards the elevator community. Bartlett's personality was unique. His personality included traits that made him incredibly disliked by the community in his videos of mockery. Bartlett's beliefs also proved to be incredibly unpopular as he hinted towards possibly being racist, a neo-Nazi, and uncaring of content ownership. His videos notoriously took large emphasis in harassing Alex Ellis. Other members of the elevator community abused by Bartlett in his videos include Lifts & WM & Hand Dryer & Transport Enthusiast (formerly the NZ Lift Channel), PostTower, IDLift3000, and CraftHunter Gaming to name a few. Bartlett's main series was his 'reaction' videos. In these monetized videos he would play a lift filmer's video in it's entirety. Usually Bartlett would mock specific points of the video then give it a rating out of 5 'cars'. Despite his channel's name, very few car videos were filmed. Videos that did revolve around cars were noticeably short. His channel trailer also steals some content with one of Alex Ellis's channel trailers being played at the end. One common theme in Bartlett's videos would be his abrupt endings. His house tour and hand dryer review conclude with someone angrily confronting him, his facecam videos usually end with "now because of this", and his Q&A concludes with a Christmas Card saying "Kill yourself". These abrupt endings support the communities 'troll' theorists. Despite being the main target of Bartlett's attacks, Alex Ellis chose to ignore his actions on the advice of his father. Alex did consider reporting Bartlett to the New Zealand police, but decided against it as Bartlett did not pose any real threat to him and the evidence to build a case was not sufficient enough. Alex did mock the fact Bartlett had shown his face on camera (except his eyes, which are partly concealed by his sunglasses, but can be partly seen in his final video), as well as letting his audience hear his real voice and even let Alex know which city he lived it. He said that if he'd wanted to report Bartlett to the police, it probably wouldn't take them long to find him. Supposed Death, Disapearence & Potential Return On the 27th of April 2016, Bartlett uploaded his final video. Titled "Petroleum® $5 Cheesy Double Beef Burrito Big Box REVIEW!" it is Bartlett's first and only 'food review.' The title and description are stolen off the most recent Joey's World Tour video who is a prominent YouTube food reviewer. Bartlett simply placed "Petroleum" in the title. The video consists of Bartlett announcing his intention to do a food review on Petroleum and shows him drinking it as well as vomiting blood as the poisonous substance entered his bloodstream (Petroleum, more commonly known as Petrol, is used to fuel petrol cars. It is a highly toxic and flammable chemical and is highly dangerous). This is the only video in which Bartlett has a cameraman, in this case it was his close friend Wendell Parker. Bartlett ends the video with him collapsing as he feels weak from consuming the petroleum. His channel has not been active since the video was released. It should be noted that there is no actual proof that Bartlett drank petroleum - we only have his word for it, It was later revealed on Alex Ellis's Google+ by Parker that Bartlett had passed away from the poisoning five days later on Thursday the 4th of May. Parker stated this: "The hospital staff was unable to remove the petrol from entering his blood stream so it eventually infected his major organs and shut them down. He suffered a cardiac arrest on the Thursday night and unfortunately did not recover." Bartlett disappeared from the internet entirely after these events took place, which suggest that he did in fact die, however there has never been any physical evidence presented that proves he actually died. On August 6th, 2018, a comment on one of Alex Ellis's recent videos by a user named "NZ Gaming Alliance" (a channel with no content), said that Herman Bartlett had come back. There has, so far, been no evidence to prove this. Nothing has been uploaded to Bartlett's channel. We will update this page if there is any proof. It is possible that "NZ Gaming Alliance" is trolling. Memory The elevator community has mostly forgotten about him and the problems he caused. Alex Ellis has stated that he wishes to simply forget Bartlett and pretend that the whole encounter with him never happened, stating that he has more important issues within his home life that he has to deal with and he no longer want anything to do with the situation. He stated that if Bartlet did in fact pass away, then he wishes to offer his condolences to Bartlett's family and friends and does not in anyway blame them for his actions or his death. Bartlett's Facebook account has since been deactivated, but his YouTube channel is still open to view. Many people have commented on his channel expressing gratitude of his death, causing upset to his fans.